


A Study in Agony

by darkgaaraluver



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst without a happy ending, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Child Soldiers, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, It's a close thing though, M/M, Mild Gore, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, although no one dies so there's that, child endangerment, season 3 doesn't exist in this fic, through season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2019-06-28 03:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15699603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkgaaraluver/pseuds/darkgaaraluver
Summary: Alec is nine and it's Izzy's birthday. Something terrible happens. Alec has to live with it. Then Max is born. He has to live with that too.





	1. Izzy

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally parts one and two of one of those 5+1 fics where it's five times Alec wants to die and one time he really doesn't. After the new season of Shadowhunters though I found myself a little let down and absolutely not wanting to write this. But it's actually pretty good? Maybe? So maybe I'll do the other parts. I was going to do one with Jace and Alec figuring out his feelings. One with the bullying thing they talked about where Alec fought back and they broke his fingers. One where he realizes he's in love with Magnus or maybe one with Clary idk and one where he's happy with Magnus and his family.

The door to Alec’s bedroom slammed loudly behind him. Louder than he meant by far. Any other time and he would have winced and prayed his parents hadn’t heard, but this time he just fell back against it, clutching at his tiny chest, trying desperately to control his breathing to no avail. His breathing just got faster and faster, until he had to push it out with all he could to even get the gasps out. 

 

He could feel his hands shaking and stared down at them in horror.  _ Weak.  _ The word flashed through his mind and he wasn’t sure if he was thinking it or if it was the remembered voice of his mother. Before he could stop it a tear slipped down his face. He quickly reached up to rub it away with his fist. He was nine now, a big boy. Practically an adult. Adults didn’t cry. 

 

It was hopeless though. His trembling spread up his arms and down through his legs. He fell to his knees, a virtual flood of tears now running down his face. He tried to push himself up off his knees but didn’t make it very far before he slammed back against the door, his catche of arrows banging against it alarmingly. A sob wrenched it’s way up his throat. He curled up over his knees and wrapped his arms around his head to muffle himself. 

 

In the blackness his parent’s words came back clearer than ever.  _ We gave you a simple task! She could have died! Your fault! How could our son be so weak and irresponsible! _

 

The words hit him like stabs but he knew in his heart he deserved it. 

 

The images played behind his eyelids like a movie. 

 

Everything had started out fine. It was Izzy’s fifth birthday and she wanted to go to a mundane restaurant for dinner. They’d never been to many mundane places before, but Izzy loved looking in all the windows when their parents had to take them out of the institute with them. Their parents had been...hesitant about the idea. But they had eventually caved in to Izzy’s puppy dog eyes. 

 

They never made it to the restaurant though. 

 

About halfway there they had been attacked by a group of Ravener demons. Alec hadn’t seen any in person before but he recognized them from his textbooks. His parents never left the institute unarmed, and even Alec, who was too young yet to carry runes, had had his bow with him. He’d only picked his specialty weapon a couple weeks ago. His dad had put a glamor rune on the actual catche for him and everything. 

 

Their mother had been instantly ready for the attack, holding them off while Alec’s dad had dropped Izzy’s hand and pushed her behind Alec, quickly slashing through Alec’s glamor rune so he could use his bow. He’d only given Alec one command. “Protect your sister!” 

 

Alec remembered nodding shakily and taking up his best defensive position as his dad had run to back up his mother. He remembered trying to look in every direction at once, forcing his breathing to try and stay even. He felt Izzy bunching his shirt up in the back and and heard her soft crying. 

 

Izzy had let out a sharp, wet, gasp and Alec had whipped his head around to check on her. 

 

That was when it happened. 

 

In the instant that Alec had checked on his sister a Ravener demon had slipped by his parents to attack them. Alec had noticed the movement out of his peripheral vision and tried to fire a shot. But he was shaking so badly in his fear that his shot landed nowhere near his mark and the Ravener demons claws slid right past his shoulder and into Izzy’s chest.

 

Everything after that had been flashes. A stinging from his shoulder, Izzy’s blood hitting his face, her scream, one of his parents slashing through the demon, ichor splattering his clothes.

 

He’s not sure how they had gotten back to the institute. He doesn’t remember the silent brothers being summoned. They’d just appeared in the door to the infirmary. He’d never seen them in person before either. He thinks he might have been scared of them if he could have felt anything.  Everything had been just a numb haze. 

 

They’d had no choice but to rune Izzy. The wound had been too deep. They put the mark of the angels right over her sternum. They weren’t sure if she would live or die for over an hour. She was so small to have any runes they thought it might kill her before the wound would even. 

 

His parents had started yelling. He wasn’t sure if it was at eachother or the silent brothers because he’d long left the room to sit in the hallway. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his sister any longer. He didn’t want her covered in blood and hooked up to wires to be the last picture he had of her if she did die. 

 

So he’d sat in the hallway. Staring at his shaking hands and the red carpet. 

 

It wasn’t his parents that came and told him she was alright. It had been a silent brother. A young one who still had his eyes open. He’d told him she would live and be strong. Then he’d bandaged Alec’s shoulder. He’d forgotten about it himself. He’d dug his fingernails into his palm during the bandaging. He wished that his shoulder was bad enough that he’d need to take a rune early too. He was the eldest. It should have been him.

 

It should have been him.

 

Although he wasn’t anywhere near sure enough that he’d survive it like his sister. 

 

When the silent brother went back into the room his parents had come out. He wished they hadn’t.

 

Their faces had been blazing. His mother had bounded up to him and practically lifted him out of his seat. Her nails bit into his wrist. She’d gotten right in his face. His hands still hadn’t stopped shaking. She was quick to point it out. “This! This is why your sister is in this state! We gave you a simple command! A simple task! But you were too weak and irresponsible to carry it out! Your sister could have  _ died  _ Alec! Your shaking and quivering is pathetic!” She practically threw his hand back at him. 

 

“This wasn’t even a real mission. Imagine if it had been. You are a failure Alexander Lightwood. You’ll be lucky if you  _ ever _ earn your rune!”

 

His father had walked up behind his mother and put a hand on her shoulder. She turned toward his father as if she couldn’t even bare to look at him anymore. His father’s face had been an impenetrable mask and when he spoke his voice was solemn and slightly horse. “Go to your room Alec. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

 

And now here he was. Finally feeling something but he wasn’t sure  _ what _ . It felt like  _  he  _ was the one who got stabbed through the chest. His dark room was suffocating him. The flashing scenes felt like they kept getting closer. He was a failure.

 

He’d loved Izzy from the moment she was born, all the smiles she put on people’s face, the way she grabbed his hand in her tiny one, the way she called him “Big Brother”. The way she looked up to him made him feel important for once. Like she could really see him. He’d yell at her to stop climbing on the furniture because she could fall and hurt herself but she was never worried because “You’d just catch me silly”.

 

Now she was lying unconscious in a hospital bed. 

 

His parents were right to look at him the way they had. 

 

His hand had drifted up to the cut on his shoulder. He hadn’t really noticed. He’d pressed down so hard blood had leaked through the bandage. The physical pain helped the dull pain in his chest. When he looked at his blood covered hand he noticed it wasn’t shaking anymore. He only had one thought floating through his head. 

 

_ “I wish it’d been me. I wish I didn’t have to face tomorrow. I wish I was  _ dead _.” _

 

He squeezed his hand shut. He had to face tomorrow though he knew. He had to keep being there to protect his sister. Her bright shining eyes played across his mind's eye. She didn’t know he was a failure yet. She’d be looking for him when she woke up. 

 

So he’d just have to make himself better. For her. For his parents. He’d become the perfect shadowhunter to protect her.


	2. Max

Alec stood by the vow he’d made that night. His sister made a full recovery, but sometimes he’d look over at her and see blood down her front. As their parents pulled further away from her he made sure to stay by her at any cost. He became the perfect soldier. 

 

As their studies progressed the constant tension increased at the same time. Everytime Izzy so much as looked too long at a seraph blade it felt like his muscles were tearing at him to get her away. 

 

His parent’s lessons embedded themselves under his skin.  _ Always follow orders no matter what. Push yourself until it hurts and then push harder. Shadowhunters are warriors. Emotions are useless.  _

 

He knew that was why they distanced themselves from Izzy. When she’d gotten hurt they’d realized just how attached they’d gotten. He reasoned that that was also why they made sure to stay on top of him. He was the oldest. He would carry on their legacy. They needed him to be strong. They couldn’t afford failure or weakness in their first born. 

 

That’s why at first he didn’t understand why they would decide to have another child. 

 

When he’d caved and asked his father he was told that good shadowhunter families needed to have as many children as possible to keep up the shadowhunter ranks due to the tendency for them to die young. 

 

He understood. It was logical. The childish part of himself that he had made sure to burry seemed to constantly be asking  _ aren’t Izzy and I enough? Am I not good enough?  _

 

But it was a stupid question. He’d known he hadn’t been good enough since the incident. He wasn’t sure he’d ever make up for it. Besides, it was a matter of quantity not quality, he’d try to tell himself. 

 

A couple nights after Max was born he’d snuck into Max’s room and found himself standing silently over Max’s crib, the baby monitor turned off. He wasn’t sure why he was in there at first.

 

The longer he stood over Max’s crib though the more it dawned on him.

 

This was another responsibility he’d have to bare. 

 

Max was even younger than Izzy, even more breakable. He knew that their parents would entrust him with this too. Would assume he’d do it without asking. Would comand him. And he would follow. 

 

He thought of the way his parents had taken to ignoring Izzy, to letting her do whatever she wanted as long as she followed her studies. The way their faces turned away automatically from her smile. 

 

Alec pulled out the knife he now always kept in his boot. 

 

He held up his right hand in the dark, the one that he could still see the blood on if he looked close enough, and dragged the blade across his palm. He winced heavily at the drag.

 

Then he touched his left pointer finger into the blood and used his other fingers to gently pull down the front of Max’s onesie. He carefully put a small dot of blood right over his heart. 

 

“There.” His voice seemed loud in the silence. “I hope you aren’t as much of a trouble maker as Izzy.”

 

He took a step back from the crib to make sure he hadn’t disturbed Max’s sleep. Looking at the little dot of blood it all came crashing down. 

 

He now had two people that were depending on him. All the pressure he felt from watching Izzy doubled. The walls felt closer. The darkness heavier. He wanted to take it back. 

 

But he couldn’t. He had to live with his parents decisions. 

 

He looked away from Max and back down to his hand that had already started crusting over. He clenched his fist and reopened the cut with his nails. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with a crushing sadness. 

 

Someone was going to get hurt because of him. He knew it. He could never live up to this obligation. Never. 

 

He was very aware of the knife that was back in his boot. Hit once again with the desire to plunge something into his chest. Then it wouldn’t feel so tight. No one’s pain would be his fault.

 

But, like all the times passing before he knew he couldn’t because he had people who needed him to try. Had Izzy. And Max now.

 

He moved away from Max now and turned the baby monitor back on as he crept out of the room his mother’s words ringing through his head  _  Not good enough, you need to try harder. _


	3. Broken Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm rewatching Shadowhunters to get to 3b so I decided to finish this after all. I'm following my original plan for it so it's not season 3a or 3b compliant. Please don't give me 3b spoilers in the comments.

Alec was 12 now and the proud owner several ruins. He was an official soldier for the Clave now, sent on regular patrols. He’d killed several demons and even some vampires in his few short months of active duty.

 

He’d also gained another brother. 

 

This one felt different to him though. Much different. Alec wasn’t sure why yet. He wondered if maybe the difference was that he hadn’t watched Jace grow up, that he’d just appeared in his life one day. Or maybe it was that Jace was even more competent than him, despite being a year younger. 

 

He wasn’t sure how his classmate had picked up on feelings that he himself didn’t understand yet, but he didn’t appreciate Roger using it against him. It took everything Alec had to keep the mocking from the adults at the institute. If his mother ever found out he was being bullied he’d have hell to pay.

 

No matter how hard he trained, punching bags until his knuckles bled, extra sparring practice with both Jace and Hodge, nothing was working. 

 

Everyday Alec would feel the pain of hitting the floor and when no adult was watching a kick to the side would follow. A hissed  “Are you done trying yet? Go back to hiding behind your  _ brother’s _ back. You’re a disgrace to the Clave.”

 

Everyday the frustration simmering just under the surface would grow. Alec did nothing but train and go on missions for the betterment of the Clave, to protect his family, to live up to his parents' expectations. To be brought low by someone who was infamous at the institute for barely trying was a disgrace.

 

On top of that Alec knew his emotional response was just as shameful as his failure. Shadowhunters were meant to suppress their emotions. Every time Alec’s eyes filled with tears of frustration when Roger would rig his desk chair to fall apart under him, or ruin his arrow cache to be boiling hot to the touch, it filled Alec with a deep self-loathing. 

 

It had been over three years since Izzy’s attack. Three years that he’d been working on not feeling anything and this was all he had to show for it?

 

Alec had the misfortune of being paired up with Roger for a spar when his mother came to watch his progress. Her feedback rang through his head all that night. “You’re too predictable. Having good form means nothing if you can’t beat your opponent.”

 

The next time he fought Roger the words were still ringing in his head. Something inside Alec snapped. Suddenly he was letting loose every awful ounce of pain and frustration he’d felt since Roger had begun his torment. Since before that. Since he’d found himself sitting useless in a hallway staring at his own hand. He didn’t care if he hurt himself or Roger. He didn’t care that causing serious damage was against the rules. He didn’t care about anything. And when he broke Rogers nose with the end of his staff, Roger’s blood running down his face, Alec grinned in triumph.

 

Roger’s nose was a quick heal with a ruin, but Alec was not surprised when his mother filed a complaint. She was on the council and always thought her son deserved preferential treatment. He submitted himself to his punishment gladly. His mother and Roger were there to watch as Roger’s mother carefully broke two of his fingers on his right hand.

 

Alec held his tongue the whole time, not once yelling in pain or flinching. 

 

His mother even shot him a tight smile and put a hand on his shoulder on her way out the door. Roger was quick to follow the adults out and the freaked out expression on his face when Alec smiled at him let Alec know he wouldn’t be a problem again.

 

If after the incident no shadowhunters his age wanted to associate with him it didn’t matter to him. He had his sibling to look out for. When he was in charge of a team they still listened to him. 

 

Personal attachments were a weakness. Feelings were a weakness. He was going to live up to the Lightwood name if it killed him.

 

Watching his fellow shadowhunters from a distance, sometimes he hoped it would. 


	4. Jace

Alec was 16 and he’d figured it out. God he’d figured it out and he wished with every fiber of his being that he hadn’t. 

 

It was the night before his Parabatai ceremony with Jace and Alec couldn’t stop shaking. 

 

Izzy knew. Izzy knew and her words of advice repeated over and over inside Alec’s mind. Alec wished he could just be grateful that Izzy hadn’t run the other way screaming at what a freak Alec was, but her advice was wreaking havoc on him.

 

He’d never heard of a gay shadowhunter before. Part of their job was to have children to carry on the legacy. When he first realized his feelings he didn’t believe it at first. It had taken so long for him to come to terms with it. 

 

He was disgusting. Jace was his brother. Not by blood perhaps, but by bond. If he went through with the binding, he’d be letting Jace bind himself to a disgrace. 

 

He knew that if he called it off though, everyone would ask why. Jace would ask why. And Alec would have to tell them. 

 

When he was especially weak he’d imagine that he’d tell Jace and instead of being disgusted he’d say he loved him too and instead of pushing him against a wall to punch him, he’d lean in and…

 

And then Alec would wake up. 

 

Alec knew even if he told him Jace would never return his feelings. Jace had already dated a couple shadowhunter girls and even a mundane. He was 100% straight. Still the better shadowhunter.

 

If he gave in to his weakness and called off the ceremony the only thing that would happen is that he would lose everything. Jace, his family, his respect. Any chance he would ever have at not being a disappointment. 

 

The alternative was almost as bad though.

 

If he went through with this he would be physically and spiritually bound to Jace. He’d be right next to him while he dated and got married and had a  family. Close, but never as close as he wanted. It sounded like a slow torture. Like King Tantalus so close to food and water but never able to eat or drink. 

 

It was enough for him to have reached for his blade several times that night already. Holding it up to his throat. If he killed himself it wouldn’t matter. He would die in disgrace, but his secret would be safe. He wouldn’t have to choose.

Surely Izzy and Jace were good enough shadowhunters in their own right that they didn’t need him looking out for them now right? 

 

Then he’d think of how their mother still didn’t look at Izzy and how young Max was still and put the blade down with a clatter. 

 

In the end he showed up. What was one more slow torture after all?

  
  



	5. Murderer

Alec couldn’t stop rubbing at his hand. Even after he’d fired enough arrows for them to be covered in blood.

 

He knew in the depths of his carefully blank mind exactly why he was sitting on Magnus’s balcony in the middle of the night. He also knew exactly why he still hadn’t made Magnus aware that he was there, or gone in the front door.

 

Magnus gave him a hope for the future, for himself, that he still wasn’t sure he deserved. 

 

Tonight he felt even more sure that he didn’t deserve to have Magnus even look at him.

 

It wasn’t like he’d never killed anyone before. He was a soldier of the Clave. Of course he had.

 

Killing was in his bones by now, a constant presence that sometimes seemed like his only constant. He’d lost count of how many demons and rouge downworlders he’d killed, hadn’t even flinched when he was first called upon to kill fellow nephilim. They were circle members after all.

 

If he ever felt guilty about how a hunt had gone down beating the punching bag, or firing arrows until his hands were bloody and torn for the next few days usually worked as a way to punish himself and a reminder to be better in one. It was usually enough to quiet Alec’s restless heart.

 

He’d never killed anyone he knew though. Never anyone that left behind a loved one that Alec had to watch grieve everyday.

 

He hadn’t slept since. He’d tried once or twice but every time he closed his eyes it was like he could feel his hand ripping into someone’s chest, could hear someone crying. 

 

Alec couldn’t understand it. Didn’t understand how the dreams could feel so vivid when he had no memory of what he’d done, just a badly angled security video of it.

 

He’d scrubbed his hands until they themselves started bleeding, but he still looked down at his right hand and saw Jocelyn’s blood sometimes.

 

He punched and punched and fired arrow after arrow, but nothing he’d done had helped.

 

It hurt so much more that Clary refused to blame him. He wanted a punishment from Clary. Anything to atone. 

 

If Clary just punched him, or-or stuck a seraph blade through his chest right where he’d stuck his hand through her mother’s or, hell, even let him apologize properly. 

 

All he wanted right now was for the pain to stop. All he’d ever wanted was the pain to stop. But this time it hurt so much Alec wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bottle it back up. 

 

Alec couldn’t honestly remember a time he didn’t want to die, or at least a time when he wouldn’t accept it whole-heartedly. But after he accepted his parabatai bond with Jace he promised himself he’d be careful, would force himself to live through anything to be with his siblings, to be there for them. He would never force Jace to find out what being without part of his soul was like.

 

But he couldn’t run to his siblings for motivation now. Izzy was keeping a close eye on Clary, trying to help her through everything while recovering from a stab wound, she didn’t need the burden of knowing how Alec hurt. Max was still in Idris training, and Alec would never think of getting him involved anyway. And Jace. 

 

Alec had to force himself not to puke when he remembered that it wasn’t just Clary’s mother he’d killed. 

 

He squeezed his still bleeding fingers to force down his next sob. 

 

He wasn’t proud that that was how Magnus had found him, but was grateful that Magnus knew what to say. 

 

He’d have to look out for Clary now, just like his siblings. Maybe that would take even a touch of the pain that beat like a second heart inside his chest.

  
  
  



End file.
